Graphic Signs Research Articles

Consumer knowledge of food labeling

Introduction: Food labels are an important source of information for consumers about the food they consume. They are divided into compulsory and voluntary. Compulsory information are name, composition, additives, expiry date, nutritional value and also country and place of origin. Voluntary information are brand, quality marks, nutrition and health claim and different graphical signs making it easier to recognize the product. Aim: The aim of this paper is to evaluate the knowledge of consumers in information placed on the labels of food products and evaluating which sociodemographic factors influence the level of knowledge of respondees. Material and methods: The research was performed in the period of February to April 2022 with the help of an original questionnaire among 212 residents of Poland. After analyzing the answers, the level of knowledge of the respondents was assessed. Finally, the level of knowledge was compared to gender, age and education level. Results: 39,6% of responders read labels, 31,6% read only specific information. Both women (44,4%) and men (35,6%) most commonly showed knowledge on a good level. Older people aged 51-70 (38.1%) are characterized by a lower level of knowledge. People with vocational education demonstrate a sufficient level of knowledge (45,4%), and the highest level – very good – among people with university education (50%). Conclusions: The awareness of the most numerous group of consumers on information put on labels of food products was evaluated as good. Age and the level of education influence the level of knowledge, while the gender Has no effect on it.

Asteriscul. Un semn cu multiple valori

"The asterisk is one of the oldest graphic signs and still plays an important role in both printed and electronic texts. The sign * appears in a wide variety of domains (literary texts, scientific works, legal and administrative documents, advertising messages), and the roles differ depending on the type of text. Some roles played by the asterisk remain constant regardless of the domain: for example, marking footnotes, delimiting chapters or anonymizing proper names. Other roles are specific to a certain field: marking unattested and reconstituted forms or ungrammatical constructions in linguistics or marking bold text in communication on electronic devices that do not allow bold letters."

The importance of the quality of information and the methods of its distribution in the process of promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Each piece of information is distributed in the form of a message. Its character takes various forms, it can be expressed by words or in images. It is the visual form which is the most effective tool of influence. Graphic signs are often used to convey or exchange thoughts. The signs have an informative function but they are also meant to force a specific behavior. Such a change in expectations and beliefs of a specific regulator is called the social impact. The intensity of interpersonal relationships is deliberately stimulated through an appropriate form of communication. The more expressive and emotional is its character, the greater the benefits for the quality of communication in the process of promoting healthy behaviors.

THE MULTIMODAL СONTENT OF THE FIRST GERMAN LANGUAGE TEACHING MANUALS

The information explosion caused by the invention of printing in the middle of the 15th century, the Reformation and Luther’s activities led to the elevation of the German language to the level of “high” languages in which it was possible to teach in German schools in addition to the three sacred languages. For the first time, the German language became not only an object of description, but also an object of instruction in German schools, where, along with the abacus and the basics of the Law of God, they taught reading and writing in their native German. There is a need not only for linguistic comprehension of the German language, but also for its introduction into teaching. The communicative practices presented in the first literacy manuals in German reflect a multimodal process carried out through three main information channels — verbal, prosodic and visual. The article describes the formation of the process of integrating verbal information, focused primarily on the teacher, with prosodic (syllabification, onomatopoeia and sound production, etc.) and non-verbal, visual, information contained in tables, graphics and pictures (taking into account gestures, facial expressions, etc.), designed for the student. The objectives of the article are to describe the functional interaction and the invasive potential of verbal, visual, sound and graphic signs in the process of communication when teaching literacy in German. The content of the analyzed literacy manuals of the 16th–17th centuries, compiled by Valentin Ikelzamer, Fabian Frank, Peter Jordan, Ortolph Fuchsberger, etc., demonstrates the dynamics of the development of this type of text from monomodal verbal manuals, through the inclusion of tables and diagrams in the verbal text to the integrative embedding of a picture (image) in a verbal context and the “centric” inclusion of a staged image, in which the leading role is given to the image, and the verbal part acts as an explanation.

The application of metaphor and metonymy in modern generative graphic design systems (on the example of combined graphic signs)

The application of metaphor and metonymy in modern generative graphic design systems (on the example of combined graphic signs)

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION J. BRAHMS’ COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUE IN PIANO QUINTET IN F MINOR OP. 34

Under analysis is the issue of notation functioning as a sign system in the process of fixing a musical work, which is relevant in modern musicology. Scientific publications outline various aspects of musical semiotics, but do not highlight the relationship between the specifics of compositional techniques and ways of its rendering. Graphic signs are studied in the proposed article from the standpoint of this relationship which determines the scientific novelty of the results. The purpose of the research is to reveal the ways of graphic representation of the composer’s technique in the musical text on the example of J. Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor Op. 34 using semiotic and structural-functional methods of analysis. Results of research. In order to conduct this research, analysis of graphical representation of compositional devices in J. Brahms’ musical text has been done. His characteristic traits of writing include highly developed motivic technique. The composer finds new variants of musical units without changes of their rhythmical parameters or inner interval relations. In works by J. Brahms, variation presupposes such operations on motives, in which the composer changes either their articulation or temporal parameters as a result of shifting musical units in regard to the metric “grid” of the bar. Hence, there have been revealed new functions of the musical notation which becomes an important tool to fix and stabilize the musical work. Conclusions. As the composer fixes his musical intentions, formation of individual graphic sign system occurs; it is based on traditional notation but is marked by different functional and logical connections according to author’s intentions. As a result of this, various slurs, accents, “hairpins”, dynamic marks and their succession become one of the ways, in which composer’s thought acquires graphic representation. The specifics of graphic signs functioning in J. Brahms’ music requires their analysis as semiotic objects and understanding of the rules by which they can be deciphered. These rules cause relations between sign-bearers and their interpretants. Slur with its primal meaning of legato, placed in a new context, becomes a marker of motivic structure. Further joining of the slur with the “hairpin” allows indicating the principal tone, “emphasis” in a motive which influences its articulation. Thus, a circle of interpretants occurring in certain contexts expands.

Punctuation marks as stylistic markers in Latvian and British corpora

Text is made of different signs, e.g., graphical signs – punctuation marks and emoticons. Punctuation has four functions in the written language: grammatical, intonative, semantic, and stylistic. Since the Latvian language uses the same punctuation marks as English and also the language features in fiction and mass media have become more important, the paper analyses the stylistic usage of punctuation marks in Latvian and English corpora.

Signs and Docents in Zoo Visitor Education: Using Affinitive Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) Behaviors

The goals of zoos are providing an entertaining and educational experience for visitors, promoting environmental conservation, and promoting positive welfare for nonhuman residents. Education can unify these goals. In this study, data were collected on visitors to the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) exhibit at The Zoo Northwest Florida. Researchers implemented three conditions of education at the chimpanzee viewing platform: a graphic sign, a trained docent, and a control condition with no intervention. The sign and docent encouraged visitors to use affinitive chimpanzee behaviors. Visitors were significantly more active in the graphic sign condition and significantly less active in the docent condition, and their behavior did not vary from the expected value during the control condition. Visitors used the affinitive behaviors that were demonstrated in each experimental condition. These results suggest that both graphic signs and docent interaction affect visitor behavior and can be considered useful educational tools for fulfilling the goals of the zoos.

Acque e colture irrigue in Terra di Lavoro tra XVII e XVIII secolo. Una riflessione sul paesaggio dell’acqua tra economia e tutela

In the archive of the Abbey of Montecassino there is a judicial affair between the monks of the Abbey and the Duke of Mignano stored. The quaestio of the dispute is for the sowing of rice by the Duke who, despite several orders of prohibitions (1661, 1665), persists in cultivating it, causing, according to the Benedictine monks, “great damage to the universities of St. Vittore, St. Pietro Infine, Mignano” because “it affects the wholesomeness of these lands”. An unpublished large-scaled cartography is attached to this judicial dispute, whose graphic signs clarify and define the places of the diatribe also providing further information: we are in the Terra di Lavoro bathed by the river Peccia which is used and partly diverted to irrigate the Duke’s rice. The case study offers a lot of food for thought starting from the problematic relationship between the values of the environment and water resources, defended by the Benedictine monks, and the economic and productive needs of a local aristocracy with an entrepreneurial vocation. This contrast connects, recalling and confirming it, to the wider one that developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries linked to the spread of rice where doctors, agronomists, politicians have widely debated the problems raised by the spread of rice fields in the Peninsula.

COGNITIVE STYLES OF STUDENTS AND MOTOR BEHAVIOUR: DETECTION AND ANALYSIS OF THE GRAPHIC SIGN THROUGH THE USE OF MASQUERADE

Graphomotricity is a function inherent in the human being, which «allows to trace a message of any kind in a determined space thanks to the combined movements of the arm and the hand in close connection with the whole body, first place of expression of emotional life, cognitive and relationship» (Boscaini, 2008). The way in which the person distributes the writing on the sheet can be considered the expression of the way in which it moves in the environment (Moretti, 2006, Torbidoni & Zanin 2013, Conficoni, 2018) and the way to trace the graphic strokes and to arrange the words on the sheet, can be indicative of the subjective orientations (cognitive, volitional and affective) towards the world. The aim of this research is to verify the correlation between certain features of the handwriting and the configuration of fundamental cognitive styles (executive, judicial and creative), as they were identified by J. R. Sternberg. It is also possible to assume that there is a transfer from the space lived with the body, to the space of the sheet, through a process activated by bodily and emotional experience. The detection of cognitive styles is conducted on about 300 subjects aged between 13 and 19 years, through the administration of the test developed by J.R. Sternberg. The detection of the graphic features will take place through the software Masquerade, developed by the Company Spin Off Nite (Natural Intelligent technologies) of the University of Salerno and will be focused on the graphic signs explorable through the use of this tool.

P‐15.1: Projection Display Screen for Floating Signage Which Enables to Make Images Invisible from Back Side Using Light Control Technology

Window decals are stickers that help catch the eyes of customers and look like floating images in the air because of the transparent glass window. But these graphic signs have defects. They are problems of mirrored imaging and still images. The authors are just wondering the following; Can't we change and animate the graphic image on the window? It is common knowledge that the drawing on the glass is always same. So let us make the window decals change and animate. This paper shows the one‐way observable projection display screen using light control technologies in order to avoid these defects. The authors proposed the unidirectional or one‐way observable window signage display in 2019. Our polarized light control mechanism for projection display is simpler than the case of the 2019 signage model. You can confirm that the light control technique realizes one‐way observable projection.

21.4: Light‐emitting One‐way Observable Aero Signage Display Which Enables to Make Transparent View from Back Side Using Light Transmission Guide

You end up observing mirrored images of graphic signs when you watch light‐emitting glass tubes from back. So our research group proposed the passive light‐emitting aero signage display which is floating in the air and enables to make transparent view from back side to avoid observing mirrored images in 2020. But this signage display has a defect that it emits no light itself and you cannot observe its signage in the dark night without another light source for illuminating surfaces of the signage display. This paper shows a one‐way observable display for aero signage which enables to make transparent from back side and emits light itself using a lighting guide tube. The authors utilize a cylindrical long transparent acrylic stick as the lighting guide. Our proposed light‐emitting and color generating mechanism realize the one‐way observable imaging which enables to make invisible from back side. You may use connectable or jointable lighting guide blocks instead of the long, unbroken and jointless lighting guide tube such as a cylindrical transparent acrylic stick. This paper also describes a one‐way observable display for aero signage which enables to joint pixel modules having optical lighting guide block and emits light itself using this lighting guide. The connectable lighting guide blocks reconstruct the unidirectional imaging which enables to emit lights and make invisible from back.

Trademark infringement recognition assistance system based on human visual Gestalt psychology and trademark design

Trademarks are common graphic signs in human society. People used this kind of graphic sign to distinguish the signs of representative significance such as individuals, organizations, countries, and groups. Under effective use, these graphic signs can bring maintenance and development resources and profits to the owner. In addition to maintenance and development, organizations that have obtained resources can further promote national and social progress. However, the benefits of these resources have also attracted the attention of unfair competitors. By imitating counterfeit trademarks that appear, unfair competitors can steal the resources of the original trademark. In order to prevent such acts of unfair competitors, the state has formulated laws to protect trademarks. In the past, there have also been researches on similar trademark searches to assist in trademark protection. Although the original trademark is protected by national laws, unfair competitors have recently used psychological methods to counterfeit the original trademark and steal its resources. Trademarks counterfeited through psychology have the characteristics of confuse consumers and do not constitute infringement under the law. Under the influence of such counterfeit trademarks, the original trademark is still not well protected. In order to effectively prevent such trademark counterfeiting through psychology, this article proposes new features based on trademark design and Gestalt psychology to assist legal judgments. These features correspond to a part of the process that is not fully understood in the human visual system and quantify them. In the experimental results, we used past cases to analyze the proposed assistance system. Discussions based on past judgments proved that the quantitative results of the proposed system are similar to the plaintiff or the judgment to determine the reasons for plagiarism. This result shows that the assistance system proposed in this article can provide visually effective quantitative data, assist the law to prevent malicious plagiarism on images by unfair competitors, and reduce the plagiarism caused by the similar design concepts of late trademark designers.

THE DEITY AS A MOSAIC: IMAGES OF THE GOD XIPE TOTEC IN DIVINATORY CODICES FROM CENTRAL MESOAMERICA

AbstractIn this article I argue that the graphic images of the gods in the divinatory codices are composed of signs of different semantic values which encode particular properties. All of them contribute to creating the identity of the god. However, these graphic elements are not only shared by different deities, but even differ between representations of the same god. Analyzing the graphic images of Xipe Totec, one of the best-studied deities and one of the oldest in Mesoamerica, I elaborate a hypothesis that the images of the gods in the divinatory codices were perceived by their authors as a mosaic of different properties, which at the same time were dynamic. Consequently, there was not even one “prototypical” representation of a single god, since possibly the identity of a god was defined precisely when composing his/her image with particular graphic signs, thus crystallizing some of his/her multiple properties, important at this precise moment.

The language ability, speech competence, speech activity of Generation Z

The paper aims to demonstrate possible approaches to solving problems arising during comprehensive linguistic description of the language ability, speech competence, speech activity of Generation Z. This purpose was achieved with the help of evaluation of speech acts performed in the process of associating and in the course of spontaneous connected written speech activity. Material: the results of free and directed pair by association tests conducted by the author in 2010–2012, 2015–2016, 2019–2021. Additionally, essay texts about the topics «I and the world around me», «If it were not for computers and tablet computers», «My city» («What places in Omsk do I like to visit? Why? «), «Who do I want to resemble?», «An elderly person. What is he / she like?», «Old age. What is it like? «, «In my old age I will…», «Happiness… as I understand it» were used. The essays were written by school students of the 7th, 8th and 9th forms in 2005, 2010, 2015–2016, 2020. Methods: free and directed pair by association experiments, comprehensive text analysis. The latter enabled the author to define the following parameters: communicative (speech strategies and tactics, communication types), cognitive (actualisation of meanings and cognitive structures), semantic (word selection, distribution of object features, identification of predicates and so on), statistical (the number of words per sentence and sentences per text). The results of the study: specific features of speech actions during free and directed pair by association tests were determined. Additionally, the research revealed that Generation Z members use slang verbal and graphic signs; typical scenarios caused by certain cognitive fragments which are present in their linguistic consciousness prevail. Conclusions: I-to-subject communication is the key means for organising narration, and it dominates the communicative organisation of connected texts independent of the topic. Semantic text development is based on the form and contents of the title and virtually follows it in the reactive dialogical mode. Introductions and conclusions in the essays are reduced. At the informational level, conceptual information outweighs factual and directly develops the thesis implied in the title. The variety of semantic, conceptual, cognitive features of the texts is limited; the essays are devoid of conceptual multiple layers. The development level of teenagers’ discursive thinking, in particular, inadequate development of speech activity determines their mastering of the format of a cohesive speech piece. This is shown in organisational simplicity and insufficient text volume; cohesion is achieved with the help of lexical and syntactic repetition. In the process of written speech, the types of performed speech actions aimed to verbalise meanings are connected with the reproduction of cognitive scenarios (temporal, identification, existential) already formed in the mind. The mentioned scenarios are also manifested during free and directed by pair association in the experimental setting.

The Aesthetics of ‘Speaking Objects’ in Aniki-Bóbó’s Anthropo-cosmo-morphic Material

The surface of the things which make up the pro-filmic constitutes the shell/ signifier chosen to shape the soul of the filmic world or its anthropo-cosmo-morphic image rendered by the techniques of film language. The result is the creation of a complex and multi-layered “possible world”, consisting of discursive parts that speak through the dramaturgy and aesthetics of the film, a socio-semantics which transfigures the matter of bodies and objects through the mechanisms of filmic re-signification. Amongst these, the intellectual montage as well as all the graphic and audio signs that appear on the scene can be identified. These signs stand out because of their metaphorical-discursive capacity, as will be analysed in the film Aniki-Bóbó (1942) by Manoel de Oliveira: the written words that serve to give voice to inanimate matter (Carlitos’ bag); the modelled forms which reproduce material allegories or doubles of the human body (the doll); the fragile materials that refer to the children’s fragility itself; the steel and iron of mechanised infrastructures showing the modernisation of the country; the classical architecture, the nature of the place and the free, open-air spaces of games, as opposed to closed spaces that recall underdeveloped pedagogical institutions; and among the latter, the liminal place par excellence, symbolised by the ‘Shop of Temptations’. In the filmic whole, bodies, places and objects are thus configured as interconnected parts of a single compact world, in which the cosmos is reflected in the anthropo, and the anthropo in the cosmos, in order to transfigure, in a metaphorical key, the immaterial culture referring to the changes in national identity. This allegorical fable of Portuguese pedagogical culture ultimately proposes the possibility of a social (and political) change, projected into a ‘just’ future without dictatorship (victory of good over evil).

A Source of Inspiration. Images of Khudprom in Artistic Retrospect. Preface to the Album

The historic building, built by architect K. Zhukov in 1913 for the Kharkiv Art School (now the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts), has become not only a national gem of Ukrainian architectural style and a local landmark, but also a source of inspiration for all generations of artists, who associated their destiny with him. The idea of ​​this publication is to visually represent the images of Zhukov’s “Teremok” (as Khudprom is cordially called) in the works of artists of different generations: from venerable classics to current students. This magazine exposition is built in several art sections, where an experienced viewer will see a kind of gallery space in the form of an “expanded” exhibition. It chronologically and genre-wise unites well-known Kharkiv artists and separate creative “bottegas”: graphics and linocuts, etchings, monumental-decorative art and graphic design, where student works are presented. They were all created over 70 years: from 1950th to the present. The last section is devoted to the search for the identity of the Academy with images of Khudprom. Most of them are graphic signs made by Kharkiv graphics for the anniversaries of the Academy. This retrospective demonstrates different approaches to the interpretation of a masterpiece in many types of art over time, and the inescapable significance of the Ukrainian “Temple of Art”, which “Teremok” found in the minds and works of all generations, for whom it became a symbol of Alma-mater.

GRAPHIC ORIENTED DESIGN OF A MODERN CITY

The purpose is to analyse the objects of graphic design from the position of their aesthetic expressiveness and effectiveness of perception in the process of human orientation in the space of a modern city. The research methodology is based on the complex use of historical and comparative methods, system analysis, synthesis, generalization. The specifics of the study of the sign as an object of graphic design involves the use of semantic analysis methods. The result reveal the historical aspects of the emergence and current trends in graphic communication signs and messages used to orient a person in the modern urban space. The communication messages of modern city inscriptions-names of objects, object-spatial and plane signs of orientation in the urban environment, road signs using graphic elements and fonts have been analyzed. The main features contributing to the effectiveness of the message and current trends of graphic means in solving the problems of orientation and communication in space are highlighted. The ways of using graphic signs to solve the tasks of orientation and communication taking into account, modern trends in socio-cultural space have been analyzed and systematized. The methods for transforming the graphic form of the sign, its functional tasks in the process of human interaction with the urban environment are considered. The analysis of graphic signs from the position of their application to solve navigation and, consequently, communication problems of the city, defines the specifics of further development of graphic design in the conditions of accelerated information and technological transformation of society, and actualizes the increasing number of visual ways to transmit information. The results of the study can be used as the information basis for the development of communication design objects in the space of the city.

Magical Charaktêres in the Carolingian World: A Ninth-Century Charm in MS Vat. lat. 5359 and Its Broader Cultural Context

There has been a common assumption among medievalists that the magical signs deriving from Eastern occult practices and known in Latin as caracteres first appeared in Western European manuscripts with the rise of “learned” magic in the high Middle Ages, and with the translation of relevant materials from Hebrew and Arabic. This paper questions this assumption by presenting a charm, hitherto overlooked, that contains occult signs of Eastern origin, recorded along with an exorcistic incantation deviating from normative Christian formulas, on the final page of a ninth-century Carolingian legal manuscript from northern Italy (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 5359, fol. 146v). Thereafter, the paper sets this unique charm within a broader cultural context of eighth- and ninth-century Western Europe, where both laypeople and clerics continued to deploy graphic signs originating from Eastern occult traditions for apotropaic and healing purposes, despite the repeated criticism of this practice in normative Christian discourse.

Graphic Signs or Simple Scratches? Marks on Dacian Artefacts from Covasna – Cetatea Zânelor

"Fragmentary artefacts with incised signs from the time of the Dacian Kingdom were discovered at Covasna - Cetatea Zânelor (Fairies Fortress). The main issue is whether these signs are simple scratches or graphic signs. Keywords: graffiti; Dacian Kingdom; Covasna; pottery; letters. Rezumat: În situl de la Covasna - Cetatea Zânelor au fost descoperite materiale cu semne incizate datând din perioada Regatului Dac. Problema care se pune este dacă aceste semne sunt simple zgârieturi sau sunt semne grafice. Cuvinte cheie: graffiti; Regatul Dacic; Covasna; ceramică; litere. "